Help with parallel octaves

[PiccoloTrombonist1]

I’m composing a piece with a trombone part and tuba part playing a base line. The tuba part is playing an octave under the trombone part. What can I do to make this sound better instead of having parallel octaves?

[Nolankberk]

Harmony. Kinda depends on what you're doing but an octave and a third under usually sounds a bit less boring

[robcat2075]

I’m composing a piece with a trombone part and tuba part playing a base line. The tuba part is playing an octave under the trombone part. What can I do to make this sound better instead of having parallel octaves?

Better?

That is not a bad sound, bass trombone doubling tuba is an effective orchestration technique bring clarity and power to the bass line. It's like adding a bassoon to the bass line in baroque music.

You can assign a harmony to the bass trombone instead, but that's not playing the bass line anymore.


It is possible for performers to do either badly.

[hyperbolica]

Yeah, in Bach's "rules of 4 part harmony", parallel perfects is a no-no. But in a lot of real music parallel octaves, especially between tuba and bass bone can be very powerful. Use it judiciously. You'll find parallel octaves in a lot of top shelf classical music.

[Doug Elliott]

Unisons and parallel octaves only sound bad if they're played badly.

[Burgerbob]

I'm not sure why this would be a problem.

[JohnL]

What sort of piece are you working on? If it's something like a four-part harmony with the trombone and tuba playing the bottom part in octaves, that's a very different thing from having them playing a bass line in a pop/rock sort of tune.

[hyperbolica]

I'm not sure why this would be a problem.

Avoiding parallel perfect intervals is taught in university music courses as part of Bach's 4 part voicing rules. It is generally more applicable to 4ths and 5ths, but in 4 part writing economy is important, so octaves are included. As I remember.

[Burgerbob]

I'm not sure why this would be a problem.

Avoiding parallel perfect intervals is taught in university music courses as part of Bach's 4 part voicing rules. It is generally more applicable to 4ths and 5ths, but in 4 part writing economy is important, so octaves are included. As I remember.

Well duh... but look at any symphony part, or brass ensemble part, or much of anything with bass trombones and tuba... they are going to have some parallel octaves. Usually the bass trombone and tuba are actually the same part, not 3 and 4.

Also... Bach broke every single one of those rules.

[hyperbolica]

Avoiding parallel perfect intervals is taught in university music courses as part of Bach's 4 part voicing rules. It is generally more applicable to 4ths and 5ths, but in 4 part writing economy is important, so octaves are included. As I remember.

Well duh... but look at any symphony part, or brass ensemble part, or much of anything with bass trombones and tuba... they are going to have some parallel octaves. Usually the bass trombone and tuba are actually the same part, not 3 and 4.

Also... Bach broke every single one of those rules.

https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21 ... llels.html

The OP does not appear to be writing a symphony. Nor to be Beethoven. The question asked seems like its from a newish learner.

You asked why that idea would matter. It matters because that's what students are taught. In 4 part writing, that limitation makes sense, you've only got 4 voices, why waste one? But it obviously doesn't extend to advanced forms or other types of music. It's a basic "best practice" that beginners learn. And with good reason. We've all heard stuff written with parallel 5ths where it doesn't sound good. Not everyone starts out as Bach or Bernstein. You have to understand the rules thoroughly to know when you can break them, and when you can't.

A teacher may have asked to OP to remove the parallel motion. It may not be musically necessary, but understanding alternatives is something you have to develop. Check here for alternatives: https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21 ... otion.html

[Burgerbob]

https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21 ... llels.html

The OP does not appear to be writing a symphony. Nor to be Beethoven. The question asked seems like its from a newish learner.

Yes, one that said they're both playing a bass line. That implies to me they're the same part. I learned those counterpoint rules too.

[Doug Elliott]

"Parallel 3rds, 4ths, and 6ths were considered acceptable."

That's what I remember too. It's not "parallel perfect intervals," it's specifically parallel 5ths to avoid. And apparently octaves too, but they don't sound noticeably wrong the way 5ths do.

[LeTromboniste]

Parallel octaves are totally fine in large textures, and tuba doubling the bass trombone in octaves is extremely idiomatic. If you look at typical orchestral scores, you'll see that for the most part, the string parts (leaving out the double basses) along with the bassons and oboes tend to follow 4-part harmony and counterpoint rules. Everything else is colour and there's tons and tons of octave doubling (and the bass in particular is almost systematically doubled in octaves) and "wrong" voice-leading. There are only so many correct voice-leadings you can have...

If you want to see what it looks like to completely avoid parallels with so many voices, have a look at the tutti bits in Tallis' Spem in alium https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/5/59/T ... -05-28.pdf. You need very slow harmonies, and most of the voices are syncopated and full of rests to avoid the parallels, and pretty unmusical, although the general effect is great. Clearly not the way most large ensemble music works tough, and a very specific way of writing.

In smaller textures, especially if you're writing a quartet and it's tonal music, then yes avoiding parallels is important unless for effect (having a section where everyone is in octaves/unions, for example) or unless you occasionally have a very good reason to do so. It's not just pedantic rules, those rules came about for good reasons, not just arbitrarily, and they've been part of the western polyphonic language for almost as long as it has existed.

Avoiding parallel perfect intervals is taught in university music courses as part of Bach's 4 part voicing rules. It is generally more applicable to 4ths and 5ths, but in 4 part writing economy is important, so octaves are included. As I remember.

I never understood why universities always refer to Bach with those rules, considering those rules predate Bach by at least as much time as Bach has been dead. Parallel octaves are avoided because you're wasting a voice (but doubling of the bass in octaves, i.e. "16 foot", was routinely done) and losing individuality of lines, and when between voices other than the bass, tend to make that voice stick out a bit too much (in very large textures that's not a problem and actually something that can be desirable at times, and some composers even at the peak of orthodoxy with these rules did use parallel octaves in very large scale music because the alternative as shown above is thoroughly unmusical individual lines).

Parallel 5ths also break the individuality of the lines, but most importantly, they have a very distinctive sound. When everything has parallel fifths, they don't sound bad, but can sound a bit archaic. But when you mostly have no parallel fifth, any one that you do have can easily stick out like a sore thumb.

Parallel 4ths are totally fine (if you have two consecutive 6/3 chords, you'll usually end up with parallel fourths), although you probably don't want to have too many in a row. 4ths above the lowest note (parallel or not) however are a dissonance and only allowed when properly treated as such. 4ths are a weird thing. Because of the acoustics of them (being both closely related to the root, since they share a lot of overtones, yet also not being anywhere in the root's own overtones series), and also because of the "pull" towards the much sweeter consonance of the major third just a semitone lower, they are perceived as consonant in dissonant surroundings, but dissonant in a consonant surroundings. So in atonal music, they'll feel totally consonant, but in 4-part tonal harmony or Renaissance modal music, they are squarely dissonant.

[LeTromboniste]

Just to actually answer OP's question of what to do: assuming you are in fact writing for quartet or something like that where parallel octaves are not desirable, then typically I would expect to see the "baritone" register part alternate octaves/unisons and fifths over the bass, for the most parts. You might occasionally give them a third in a tightly voiced chord, but watch your low interval limits. Chords with very low thirds can often sound muddy, and are also more difficult for the players to tune.

[BGuttman]

I often see with 4 part music doubling the 4th (bass) part in octaves between trombone and tuba (as an example) is commonly done to allow a 5th voice. That's a way to play things like hymns with a brass quintet.

I sang in a chorus and for a couple of pieces the director had 2 tenors sing the soprano line and 2 sopranos sing the tenor line. This gave a sort of "6 part harmony". As one of the chosen tenors it was a rare opportunity to sing the melody

[PiccoloTrombonist1]

Thank you for all the help given! I was writing a quintet with a violin on melody, and cello playing whole notes. It turns out, however, parallel octaves werent the issue, but instead the fact that I had too many instruments on the bass line (3 horns vs 1 string).